Related Projects
Area
6,000 sf
In the Media
6 Design Experts Working in Flush, Dwell Magazine
Awards for Design Excellence
AIA Pennsylvania
AIA Philadelphia
Grand Jury Award
Preservation Alliance of Philadelphia
A second gallery for the Owner’s permanent sculpture collection is housed in the basement, transforming the space from a series of rooms into an open gallery.
The design inserts a new loft structure into the expansive two-story volume, creating a semi-private painting studio above a public gallery below.
The original Neo-Georgian building required significant exterior restoration, but had survived a century of hard service.
Painting Studio & Gallery
Villanova, Pennsylvania
A former electrical substation building, constructed in the early 1900’s for the Philadelphia & Western Railroad, was used by the Owner’s father in the 1950’s as a sculpture studio. Long abandoned, the Owner discovered an extensive collection of plaster casts and molds from his father’s work that remained in the building. This discovery inspired the Owner to renovate the building as a studio/gallery for his wife, a modern painter, and as a permanent home for his father’s work.
The Studio renovation posed two challenges; to facilitate through spatial design a fluid dynamic between the painting studio, a rotating gallery for modern art and a permanent collection of traditional sculptures, and to preserve the industrial character of the building.